I've been looking through old issues of Slap and realized there were stories behind everything me
and the boys did at the mag. Take this cover for example- I think this was a Real board I'd been
riding and it was time to change it up. I always liked the pattern of decay left by the truck so I
thought it would make a cool photo. Late one night while on deadline, with no cover photos
to choose from, I decided this would look good on the front of the book. "Only a skater will know
what this is", at least that's what I thought at the time. The next day Fausto came down to the
office and saw the cover, "What the fuck is that?! You can't use that- it makes no sense!" he said.
After a couple of hours of me convincing him that that was going to be the cover and I wasn't going
to change it, he finally gave up and told me I'd see that it would never sell. A few weeks after
this issue hit the news stand Fausto walked into the office and exclaimed, "Tony, (Fausto's son,
who was probably 13 at the time), saw the cover and knew what it was right away. Genius!"
He figured that if Tony got it then all skaters got it. From that point on he never second guessed our covers.
I really do miss Fausto.
2 comments:
Slap always had the best covers, and for a while changed the font style of "SLAP" one every issue. Made each cover very intimate. I have never come across another magazine in my time that has been as cool, creative, and independent in the way it displayed itself to the world.
As a young photographer in the early 90s, I always wanted to have a photo published in SLAP... hell, I still do! Cant hold a computer screen.
I've been looking through old Slap issue myself and this one always struck me.
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